Communications and Social Relations Assessment #3

ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

Federation Square opened in October 2002 and has since become a major landmark within the city of Melbourne. For decades, Melbourne had been without a central focus point (one drawback of the ‘grid’ layout of the CBD), but the creation of Fed Square provided one such place - as well as contributing to Melbourne’s reputation as an up-andcoming city of modern architecture. Fed Square’s innovative and abstract design came under a lot of criticism when the square first opened, particularly due to the lack of greenery and fragmented appearance. However, since then it has become a “meeting place” (fedsquare.com) for tourists and Melburnians alike – a modern version of the Town Square.

The square hosts various cultural events including art exhibitions, festivals and workshops throughout the year, as well as being a hotspot for New Years Eve celebrations. It is also home to ACMI, the NGV Ian Potter Centre and SBS studios.

Fed Square was hugely controversial throughout its early construction leading up to its first few weeks as a major landmark in Melbourne. Many people argued that it was ugly, sparse and was doomed to be a blemish on Melbourne’s landscape rather than a central meeting point for both locals and tourists. However it appears that Melbourne is beginning to flourish as a city of modern design as a result of Fed Square’s success. This can be seen in the construction of the colourful Docklands, Eureka tower and even the kaleidoscope-esque RMIT building. Melbourne is highly regarded as being a city of the arts, and naturally, cutting-edge design is an important part of maintaining that reputation as a fashionable and interesting city. As a result of Fed Square’s success as a prominent and modern ‘social space’, Melbourne has found another facet of its identity that can be identified with in the global community. This enables us to further compare our design culture to other cities, and to bring our modern design to new levels.

Federation Square was not just designed as a landmark to bring tourists to Melbourne, but also as the long-awaited meeting place that Melbourne needed. Social space is a vital part of any urban environment, as we create memories and impressions of the city through our shared experiences in this social space. (Low, Setha M. 1999) Fed Square has succeeded in creating this, as it hosts various events to bring the people of Melbourne together including screening football and soccer matches, short films and musical performances. Whereas smaller spaces such as the city’s laneways, such as Hosier lane, and cosy cafés seem to suggest a more intimate Melbourne, Federation Square invites the city’s residents to come out and celebrate being a part of the city together, creating a sense of belonging to a

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ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

community.

Theorizing the City: The New Urban Anthropology Reader Low, Setha M, 1999 Rutgers University Press, London Part II. Chapter 4: Spatializing Culture: The Social Production and Social Construction of Public Space in Costa Rica Street Art – Hosier Lane

Carla McGlynn s2005164

Melbourne has a national and international reputation for its graffiti and street art, attracting not only tourists who wish to view the artwork found in the city’s laneways, but also street artists from other countries adding their own contributions to the walls. Hosier Lane, a laneway that runs between Flinders St and Flinders Lane, opposite Federation Square, is the most well known of the laneways with some artwork being part of the Citylights Projects; an initiative that focuses on collaboration, street art, and emerging artists, creating outdoor galleries fit for free public viewing.

The majority of the artwork is commissioned and/or approved by Citylights. As is the nature of graffiti, unauthorized work often appears, but that’s partly the point. Citylight’s hard work in Hosier Lane has earned the lane a reputation as one of Australia’s most important cultural attractions. It featured in the state-sponsored book The Melbourne Design Guide and in Tourism Victoria's Lose Yourself in Melbourne advertising campaign, leading to questions about the dichotomy of the state's approach to street art and graffiti.

In Alison Young’s paper for City magazine, she discusses the merit of the Council’s policy of zero tolerance combined with a discretionary permit system, which was their elected course of action despite widespread support for the more progressive strategy in which there would be areas of ‘limited’ tolerance, as well as designated zones where graffiti

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would not be removed by the Council and instead, be ‘self-regulated’ by the artists. Hosier Lane is ‘already exhibiting the ability to self-regulate, with many wishing to see this continue without the ever-present threat of Council intervention’ (Young, 2010, p 103).

Avery’s chapter in Valuing Historic Environments asks the question: Is street art now part of our shared cultural heritage and should it be validated by heritage listing? He states that ‘recording of a contested object or practice can precipitate its destruction because not all sectors of the community may agree that an item is worth preserving for the future’ (p 152). Another perspective is that graffiti and street art is ephemeral; it is not meant to last. It lasts purely as long as the weather and other graffiti artists allow it to last. It’s a never-ending, changing, kind of living art form’ (p 150-151).

Colloquial definitions of graffiti and street art are based on the legality of the work and throughout Melbourne’s laneways there is much evidence of competition among artists to gain access to permitted spaces, as well as space for illegal work. Avery highlights spaces like Hosier Lane have been subject to anti-graffiti campaigns; these civic efforts obviously contradict the Government’s promotion of the mixture of street art and graffiti in tourism campaigns. In Hansen’s article for Metro Magazine he acknowledges the public debate about the issue, but says, ‘‘I wanted to challenge the stereotype of the graffiti artist, because I sensed in the drive to make graffiti is…the desire to share a vision’ (p 82).

The strategy Young outlined in her paper centred on the idea that a municipality could acknowledge the different cultures of image-making, including graffiti and street art, and that it could be a negotiable part of everyday life, especially when it has become so paramount to the self-definition, design and identity of Melbourne.

Word Count: 540 References

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ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

Young, A (2010). ‘Negotiated consent or zero tolerance? Responding to graffiti and street art in Melbourne’, City, 14: 1, p 99-114.

Avery, T (2009). ‘Values Not Shared: The Street Art of Melbourne’s City Laneways’ in Valuing Historic Environments, Ed. L. Gibson & J. Pendlebury, Ashgate Publishing, England, p 139-154.

Hansen, N (2006). ‘Rash: Street Art and Social Dialogue’ in Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, No. 151, p 80-83.

ARTEFACT 3: MX NEWSPAPER

The MX is a free newspaper located around the city (mostly train stations) distributed after majority of people finish work or school. It aims in providing unique, fun, shocking, laughable and intelligent news to Melbournians whilst maintaining a strong link to design through out the paper. The design of the paper evidently makes the MX iconic thus it becomes a design of Melbourne. It does this itself by creating a unique view of Melbourne through its layoutportraying it as a fresh and bubbly city. Its witty take on the news and its easily readable design becomes fresh air after a stuffy day in the office for most businessmen and even teenagers, young adults after school and university.

MX (Australia’s Brightest new Medium 2010, article 1) broadcasts a ‘hot publishing niche’ that is ‘free’ to the public designed to showcase a selfless way of portraying the news. However, MX doesn’t only report on newsworthy deemed by other newspapers such as the Age and the Herald Sun but also on events which are more unusual and unheard of. Subsequently, MX’s website design similar to the newspaper’s care-free layout highlights individualism which is on par with the heart of Melbourne. This can also be seen in Federation Square as it portrays a carefree meeting point centred on its unique and individual design. MX wishes to reflect Melbournian values in a ‘concise, upbeat, funky, intelligent and sexy way’ (Australia’s Brightest new Medium 2010, article 1) by providing simple yet fervent colours, images and even the writing itself in a colloquial way. Evidently this design accommodates the everyday Melbournian as it reflects them and the city they live. The MX’s design aims at providing insight to Melbourne for those who may not have seen Melbourne in that particular way.

The MX, like any newspaper has to accommodate the mass of ‘news it’s bombarded with’ (S.A White (1991) thus the MX must filter through news to see what reflects their design as a newspaper. Similar to this is the symbolic statement that the La Trobe statue reflects, due to La Trobe’s input to the state library, filtering what the library catalogued. The design of the MX is crucial in deciphering what news reflects their individual creation of a paper, so certain stories may be filtered out due to their lack of relevance. This could be due to MX’s personality which is evident in their design layout i.e. thin newspaper containing bright and flourishing images and adverts. Relative to this ideal is that ‘few news stories contain all the elements which confer news value’ (S.A White, 1991) which reflects fundamentally the MX produces news which other newspapers may ignore which reflects their uniqueness in news and design.

The most unique fact about the MX newspaper is that it is free to the public and with this in mind the design of the paper is clearly different to that of a commercial paper such as the Herald Sun. Free newspapers such as the Metro International, such as the Metro International have similar target audiences ‘18-35 year olds’ (Cole & Harcup, 2010) which is reflected in their simple deign layout- international deemed news side by side with fun and city related light news. It could be said that the Metro International which publicises ‘8.7 million copies every week’ and ‘claims 42 file:///Volumes/USB/COMM2411_FINAL.htm[4/06/10 10:07:05 PM]

ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

million readers a week’ (Cole & Harcup, 2010) similar to the MX in relation to city size is somewhat evident due to the design of the paper in the tendency that is free thus providing a less serious paper and a more light-hearted reading.

REFRENCES The MX, 2010, MX homepage and letter from the editor, MX web, viewed 28 February 2010 <http://www.mxnet.com.au> White, S 1991, the relativity of the news- reporting in Australia, 2 nd edition, McMillan, Australia Cole, P & Harcup, T 2010, Journalism studies: key texts, 1st edition, Sage publisher, London, pg 98-99 Georgina Cahill s3290968

ARTEFACT 4

This statue depicts Charles Joseph La Trobe reading the proclamation of separation and looking toward the city he helped to shape. He resides in the west corner of the lawn in front of the State Library of Victoria, bordering the CBDs busiest street, Swanston and opposite the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. This modest feat of design honours a man who is so very important in what the city of Melbourne is today. He was responsible for preserving the land that is now the lush inner city Botanic Gardens where Melbournites can escape the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. Peter Corlett's sculpture honours one of the most important figures in Melbourne's history and reminds us of a significant founding figure of the city.

Public monuments are instruments of change in a society. They are unique, they create an identity, and they must be able to stimulate the evolution of all parts of a society. In The role of public art for improving the quality of public places Ahsen Özsoy categorises the way public art is encountered into three forms: historical, aesthetic and functional. Being an obvious historical sculpture, the statue helps link the public with its history and creates a collective memory.

Monuments reflect national identity and through public acceptance of sculptures the monuments themselves can become devices of social control. There are two types of placement of public art and monuments, one is the placement as an extension of an existing artistic space which ‘sits comfortable within the conceptual spaces of city planning and equally value-free spaces of modernist architecture’ (Miles 1997, p. 59) and the other a psychological placement termed as ‘representational spaces’.

The act of commissioning this sculpture for public display is an indication of a need to remember. A need to remember an almost maternal figure of Melbourne. Marita Sturken said “The forms remembrance takes indicate the status of memory within a given culture.” (Sturken, 1923, p.23) Although in her article the central focus is the Vietnam War memorial in Washington it raises a relevant point about the way cultures remember their history, what they choose to remember and what is significant enough to preserve as reference for future generations.

Monuments can represent social values of a city or community, and can often be politically charged. (Miles 1997, p 58) The La Trobe statue is a placement that represents a celebration of one of Melbourne’s founding fathers and a visible presentation of public values. ‘Monuments are familiar in the spaces of most cities, standing for a stability which conceals the internal contradictions of society’ (Miles 1997, p. 58)

Miles, M 1997, 'The Monument', in Art, Space and the City: Public art and urban futures, 1 st edn, Routledge, London, pp. 58-61.

Ö zsoy, A 2007, ‘Public Art’, in The Role of Public Art for Improving the Quality of Public Spaces, 2007 Rotterdam file:///Volumes/USB/COMM2411_FINAL.htm[4/06/10 10:07:05 PM]

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Sustainable Urban Areas Conference, pp. 7-9.

Sturken, M 1991, ‘The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial’ in Representations, No. 35, Special Issue: Monumental Histories, University of California Press, pp 1-4.

REPORT: CHANGES

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ARTEFACT 1: FEDERATION SQUARE

I made sure that the revised version of my artefact had more to do with the city and its people rather than the physical aspects of Federation Square itself. I focused on the relationships and memories that people form with a meeting place such as fed square. I also looked more at the way my reference helped analyse the artefact in the context of social relations.

Madeleine Rebbechi s3236008

I provided a more detailed, closer description of the artefact in order to better define what it is and how it sits within Melbourne’s cultural identity. I made my analysis more succinct, using only the most pertinent extracts and quotes from each secondary source to best articulate the impact Hosier Lane’s street art has, particularly from a design point of view, on the communication and social relations of Melbourne. While I also discussed the larger graffiti and street art scene in the city, I concentrated more closely on Hosier Lane to ensure that my analysis was focussed and centred on my chosen artefact, as was the nature of the task.

In an attempt to more explicitly address both the relevance and claim to authority of the secondary sources for the artefact, I touched on each of their specific focus, but moreover I attempted to weave them together through their shared theme – the cultural influence, self-definition and social commentary that street art makes in shaping Melbourne’s identity, especially from a design perspective.

Carla McGlynn s2005164

I made some changes to my artefact, MX newspaper, making it more focused around the groups choice of design by incorporating the other members artefacts etc.. Also made further contribution to highlighting MX's relevance to Melbourne focusing more on the design aspect.

Georgina Cahill

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